36 Kilometers and 2hrs and 32 Minutes Later

Before


After

Okay so I know the toes are not the most attractive but I run about 50kms/week and this week will be about 80-100kms so imagine what your toes would look like.

Yes it's true, 7lbs lost after running 36kms this morning, that's 4.12% loss in 2 1/2hrs. I know most of that is just due to dehydration but it got me thinking about finding my optimum weight leading into Vegas. I went down to the gym in our basement and grabbed a 7lb medicine ball and I was shocked to see how large and how heavy 7lbs actually is! At the beginning of my run I was carrying around this medicine ball in my muscles, fat and tissues. That's a lot of extra weight when you are trying to prepare for a marathon. For the average ahtlete an extra 7 to 10lbs is not a big deal, if you are in shape and you've done the training, you'll still finish. However if you are trying to set a PR (like I am) any extra weight can't really slow you down.

Trying to find my ideal weight is a tough balancing act; I need to insure I'm eating enough to keep up with some of the hard training days to come and not eat too much to put me over the edge and slow me down. Right now I'm a little on the heavy side but in four weeks I'll be ready.

Today's run was very, very hard, I just got back from a work trip in which I didn't get a lot of training time. Harley was pushing me very hard at the start, which isn't unusual but today I just wanted a nice steady pace. I knew it was going to be a long day and I didn't want to use up all my energy in the first 21kms. My breathing was labored, I always had the feeling like I just wasn't getting enough air. There is something about running in the cold that makes me feel like there is no oxygen in the air, I think someone should do a study on that. I remember feeling the same way when I was training for Boston in March. Fortunately it turned out to be my best Marathon ever but I really paid for it out on the race course and it took me weeks to recover. I'm willing to make the same sacrifice on December 6th in Vegas but I still have some work to do, I'll get there 4 weeks to go.

Congrats To My Friend Colin and his Family!

If there is one friend in my life other than Amber that I can say has been with me through a lot it's definitely my bud Colin. We met in Junior High school and we were both very athletic and had a lot of energy that needed to be directed in a 'healthy' way. We both played hockey, soccer (although for different teams), ran x-country, track, did well in school (although he didn't have to work as hard at it as I did) and we were inseperable as kids. It wasn't until the first year of University that I realized how much of a positive influence my buddy Colin brought to my life. He went away to play Junior Hockey in Saskatchewan and I started University, we stayed in touch for a while but eventually started to follow our own paths in life.

When he came back to Calgary it was like old times, we hung out at University once again, played soccer for the team(s), U of C had 5 mens soccer teams. Hit the weight room together to "pump it up," went to some of the same lectures and generally had a good time together. Eventually I started a career being a travelling bum and he went to California to be a chiropractor. We stayed in touch off and on and I even visited him in San Jose for a little while which was a lot of fun but I missed my good friend. I was determined not to let us drift apart even though our lives had gone in different directions. I made the promise to myself to keep in touch no matter where I was or where he was every April 20th (Colin's birthday) and I've kept that promise for over 8 years now.

Colin has been a true friend and has been beside me through a lot of turmoil and I can definitely say that we will always be great friends. We both have our own families now and are very happy with the direction we've taken. I can't say we both have the same philosophy, he's a bit more of a risk taker than I am, but we both respect eachother's differences and admire what we've achieved so far in life. He welcomed a new edition to his family this week and Amber and I are very happy to see he has a happy and healthy family. Congrats Colin and Nichole we know Daymond and Evangeline are some of the lucky kids to have parents like you.

The Chala Family


Proud Dad


Ready to go!

3kms of Torture and 30kms of Turmoil

It was a tough weekend of training once again but well worth it. I was having some biomechanical issues last week, my achilles was acting up and my hip flexors were really tight and sore. I spent most of the week working out on the trainer and it was a nice change, I had a chance to still push myself but didn't have the high impact of running. My body appreciated the change and I felt like all my little issues had subsided.

I was on the road for a couple days this week so I spent an hour on the treadmill in Peace River. I'm trying to make sure my trips turn into mini training camps so I stay focused and prepared. I came home on Friday night and took Harley out for a 10k around Crystal Lake a couple times. He was running fast, so I went with it and used him as motivation to run a little faster. The first 5k we did in 18:42 and the second 5k in 18:35 (no pee breaks on the second lap), 37:17 for the full 10k and it felt pretty good. Amber and I had a good time Friday night and finished a couple bottles of wine, which was one bottle too much.



Saturday we met a couple guys from the run club to do our usual run and post run coffee. It's better running with some other people when you're not feeling 100%. Later Saturday afternoon Robert, Paul and I were part of a team for the last Wolves x-country race of the year, it was a 3 x 3km relay. I wasn't too concerned about racing for 3kms but after running 13kms hard on Thursday, 10kms hard on Friday and another 10kms easy Saturday morning I probably should have been. The race was a lot of fun but I have never felt 10 minutes of torture like that before. The route was beautiful, through the trails of the GP Nordic Centre. I was the anchor and Paul and Robert had set me up perfectly, I had a lead and all I had to do was maintain it. I started out so fast that I thought the muscles on my legs were going to fly off as I was running downhill. The first half was all downhill and the second half was all uphill. I hit the bottom and was completely out of breath but struggled to just keep moving as my lungs were ready to burst and my body filled with lactic acid. It's very hard to explain how you feel when you're running beyond your limits. I kept having this thought creep into my brain that I needed to just stop and walk, I know that this is just a defence mechanism but it's so hard to overcome. I did manage to hold on and ran my best 3km ever, 9:49. We won the team race by a km!!


Sunday was a long run with Amber's group, they were doing 16kms and I was doing 30kms. The first half was hell, I was struggling but Harley kept me moving and we completed the first 16kms in 1:02. I didn't want to go back out but somehow found the strength, I think it was the thought that Amber's girls were still out there running hard. I soldiered on and shuffled through another 14kms, one of the toughest 30km runs I think I have ever done, 2hrs of turmoil. It was a great "mental training" day for Vegas, there is always a point after about 35 or 36kms when you want to just stop and walk and I needed to put myself there in training and overcome that feeling. Now I'm ready for some rest.

Preparing For Vegas

I know it's been a while since I posted anything but not a lot has been going on other than a lot of hard work. I've been very busy at work and trying to fit in training has been a real challenge. I still managed to run about 50kms with Harley on the weekend and my achilles tendon flared up so I was massaging my calf for hours on Saturday. This week I've been biking a bit more and it's definitely helped, cross-training always seems to create more of a balance.

I'm away from home for the next couple days but I'll be back with Amber and H-dog on Friday. I was asked to be a part of a team relay on Saturday, it's just a short 3x3km race but it'll be a lot of fun for us old guys to go out and kick some college runners butt.

34:25, new PR!

It's been a long time since I raced in a 10k and I was really excited to see if all this hard training over the last few years has helped my speed at this distance. The Grande Prairie Fall Classic 10k was today and it was great race with about 125 people and a lot of fantastic people organizing it. Amber had all her 'Women of Strength' running and they looked fantastic decked out in matching gear. She was there to support them and they were all so excited to be out there competing. I love that energy from new runners who are just out there to finish and have fun, it makes me want to just go out and enjoy being with other athletes and run as fast as I can.

I definitely ran as hard and as fast as I could, right from the start I was in a lot of pain. I knew I was running the first 5k very fast, maybe a little too fast but I was determined to set a new PR and I didn't care how much suffering I was going to go through. Well I didn't care before I started but I definitely cared while I was running. I finished the first lap in 16:40 and I was struggling to try and hold my pace. During the second lap I could tell I was slowing down but I had absolutely nothing left to give. I really, really wanted to just stop and walk but I knew it was just my mind trying to convince me that this is not normal pain. Usually you feel pain and you do everything you can to stop it as soon as possible but an athlete cannot give into that suffering, I had to stay in my "pain cave." I suffered through the remaining 5k and finished with a PR of 34:25!! A great way to kick off my training for the Vegas marathon, hopefully I have one more PR in me before the end of the year.

Kakwa Falls Mountain Bike Trip

Last weekend was one of those epic rides I'll remember for a long, long time. It sounded like a lot of fun when I signed up three weeks ago, a 40km ride through the beautiful mountains south of GP with an incredible waterfall at the 20km turn around point. There were a lot of local athletes there and I was really looking forward to a fun day. It started early with a 6am meeting at a local coffee shop and about 25 people were up and ready to caravan out to the start. It was a long drive to get there but I carpooled out with Denis and Robert two great brothers who are also Ironman athletes and love to talk about IM. We chatted about this year's race, what we would do differently, what we did well, and what we're planning on doing this year, it was a lot of fun. After a couple of hours we were starting to wonder if we missed the rendezvous so we were looking around frantic for 20 or 30 minutes.

Fortunately we did end up finding it and we let out a huge sigh of relief. The weather was cool but it looked like it was going to get warm later in the day. Robert and I were debating if we should pack jackets or not and decided to play it safe and take one. The beginning of the ride was a lot of fun, tough, tough terrain with a few river crossings which meant your feet were wet and cold right from the start. After a few steep hill climbs I warmed up and just my feet and hands were cold. Robert, Denis and I were far ahead of everyone else, we stopped for lunch at the falls and right away it started to snow! Yes snow! We took some quick pictures and high-tailed it out of there right away.


The way back was absolutely brutal; cold, wet, muddy, and I was exhausted from the jackhammering downhills and steep unrelenting climbs in the mud. I couldn't wear my glasses anymore because they kept fogging up and without them the mud would hit my eyes every minute or two. It was an extremely difficult 20kms to get back to the car, I was so cold my hands and feet were in a lot of pain, hanging on to the handlebars was very tough and changing gears was nearly impossible with the mud clogging up everything. I made it back shattered and beaten it was a day that really tested me but those are the rides that true life experiences are made of. I'm definitely doing it again next year.

A Tribute to the Greatest Athlete Ever

It's hard to define what makes someone the greatest, is it the will, the determination, the strength, a combination of all three? If you asked me ten years ago who I would consider the greatest athlete ever I probably would have mentioned a few names but in the last ten years one man has shown the world what it means to be the greatest. It's hard to really know what a bike racer goes through during a day of racing unless you race a bike yourself but imagine pushing your body so hard that your heart and lungs are near collapse, 180bpm! Your legs are so full of lactic acid that they feel like they are on fire as you are turning over the pedals. Every thought in your brain is telling you to stop and just relax but you continue to push.

I can't think of a more difficult job than being a bike racer and I can't think of a stronger athlete than Lance Armstrong. I think I feel a bit of pride knowing he started his career as a triathlete and progressed to being the greatest who ever lived. Remember as you look at this montage that Lance is suffering more than anyone else out there, he just knows how to deal with it better having come back and beaten cancer. He makes it look so effortless as he passes other professional cyclists like they were standing still but remember he is hurting, he's just found a way to turn his pain into progress. We can all learn something from Lance, don't ever give up, keep pushing your limits, who knows how far you can reach.

Who would have thought the greatest athlete ever would be from Texas! Be proud of where you are from, don't ever be ashamed and live your life like there is no tomorrow. Keep pushing those limits and you will find you can reach places within yourself you never thought were possible. We thank you Lance, thanks for showing us that the only limits we have are the ones we place on ourselves.